Don't bother, they're here
DESIGN
COSTUME DESIGN
WINNER – Gabriella Slade for Six at the Arts Theatre
Jonathan Lipman for Harold & Maude at the Charing Cross Theatre
Pam Tait for Rothschild & Sons at the Park Theatre
SET DESIGN
WINNER – Bethany Wells for Distance at the Park Theatre
Francis O’Connor for Harold & Maude at the Charing Cross Theatre
Simon Daw for Humble Boy at the Orange Tree Theatre Continue reading “2019 Offie Award Winners”
Some decisions that reflect my own nominations for the year, many others for plays I haven’t seen and as ever, some curious choices too.
DESIGN
COSTUME DESIGN
Gabriella Slade for Six at the Arts Theatre
Jonathan Lipman for Harold & Maude at the Charing Cross Theatre
Pam Tait for Rothschild & Sons at the Park Theatre
SET DESIGN
Bethany Wells for Distance at the Park Theatre
Francis O’Connor for Harold & Maude at the Charing Cross Theatre
Simon Daw for Humble Boy at the Orange Tree Theatre Continue reading “The finalists of The Offies 2019”
“We’ve had our fill of grey skies”
I was snowed out of my original trip to Pippin at Southwark Playhouse and it has taken me more than a little while to be able to fit it back into my schedule. But although the production has had some excellent word of mouth, it wasn’t the one for me, unable to shake my feeling that this is a musical of which I’m just not very fond.
Originating at the Hope Mill Theatre last year, Jonathan O’Boyle’s lively production bears the hallmarks of much of the strong work from this new northern mini-powerhouse. An enthusiastic young cast (led here by Jonathan Carlton and Genevieve Nicole), and a rough and ready but charismatic design (Maeve Black) that uses the space well. Continue reading “Review: Pippin, Southwark Playhouse”
“I’m a poached cake without a piece of toast
Yorkshire pudding without a beef to roast”
It’s no secret at all that I love a good old-fashioned musical but it is hard to feel that we need more of them in the world. PG Wodehouse’s A Damsel in Distress started life as a novel in 1919, has been adapted on both stage (with Ian Hay) and screen, where it was augmented by a suite of songs by George and Ira Gershwin, and now finds itself as a piece of musical theatre with a new book by Jeremy Sams and Robert Hudson and vibrantly directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford.
With a cast that contains Richard Dempsey, Isla Blair, Nicholas Farrell, Sally Ann Triplett, plus the requisite Strallen (Summer, in this case), there’s little about which to complain. Yet I find myself grumbling a little, the bar at Chichester has been set so extraordinarily high with their recent successes, that even a very good production can seem a little lacklustre by comparison. And with so many great ‘traditional’ musicals of this form in the canon, do we really need new ones to be constructed? Continue reading “Review: A Damsel in Distress, Chichester Festival Theatre”